In Plain
by Artemis1000
Summary: Rey and Kylo talk about love without sex. Flash Fiction to asexuality prompt.


**Notes** : This was written for the Reylo Flash Fiction Rendezvous, aka good friends enabling me to make bad decisions.

My prompt: Kylo Ren has never wanted sex. Rey is fine with this. They are both great cuddlers.

I'd been wanting to explore asexuality in a shippy fic for ages, so how could I have resisted this prompt? While writing, I realized 60 minutes of writing time was far too little to do more than scratch the surface (and I didn't even get to the cuddling.) This is the kind of story that needs to be explored at ten times its length. But I enjoyed writing it anyway, and I hope you will enjoy reading it!

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 **In Plain**

When Rey fell in love with Kylo, she hadn't really known what to expect from a relationship based on more than mutual convenience. Such were the ones she had witnessed on Jakku, where the scavengers' struggle for survival was too hard to leave room for anyone's needs but your own.

Then life happened.

She didn't notice it, not for the longest time, for their relationship felt completely natural and perfect exactly as it was.

They would kiss and hold another, there would be tender touches and affectionate looks. But they never went further than kissing, and it didn't occur to Rey that other couples might be going further by now. It felt right just as it was, and that was all she wanted.

It wasn't until one day when she was drinking with Jessika and Karé, and they were talking about men, that Rey started to think about one peculiar way in which her relationship was unlike others.

"He must be a real beast in bed," Jessika giggled, her cheeks flushed from the homebrew they'd been drinking all evening. She waggled her brows. "Come on, spill, how's the Dark Side between the sheets?"

Rey flushed. Much to her mortification, a giggle escaped her.

"Don't torment her, Jess," Karé had laughed, "Rey's a prim and proper Jedi, they don't talk about that. My Gran told me, back in the old days they didn't even do it, it was forbidden."

"Yeah," Rey had chimed in awkwardly and they moved on to making fun of Poe's perfect hair.

The next day, Kylo and her cooked together in his quarters. They ate cuddled up together on the couch, and once the plates were cleared she curled up against his chest while they watched a movie. His fingers drew circles on her belly, under her shirt. His hands were rough and calloused like her own, she liked them like that.

"Do you ever…" She pressed her lips together and fell silent again, for she didn't know how to bring it up. It didn't bother her that they didn't, and she didn't want Kylo to think she was unhappy, but what if he was only holding back because he didn't want to push her, and was waiting for her to tell him it was okay? What if he was growing tired of waiting? "Do you miss _it_?"

He put the movie on pause, and turned to her. "Miss what?" he asked, but his fingers had stilled, and Rey suspected he knew what she was speaking of. He had that look on his face that he always had when a conversation he'd long been dreading was finally happening. It was the look he usually wore around his family. Something in Rey's belly twisted, she decided she didn't want him to look at her like this.

Rey's brows knitted into a frown. And yet, for all that Rey was slow to open up, she was also blunt by nature. "Sex." She moved away slightly so she sat kneeling next to him. "Do you want to have sex with me?"

Oh yes, he had been expecting this talk. His eyes told her as much.

"Do you?"

He was deflecting. He didn't deflect around her anymore. The furrows on Rey's forehead deepened. She chewed on her bottom lip and averted her eyes, not because the question grieved her, but the fact that he was trying to twist this around and make it about her. But accusations wouldn't make it better, only honesty would. She kneaded her hands. "I'm not in a hurry. But I thought you would want to. Maybe."

Kylo remained quiet for long moments, in which Rey grew tenser. "I don't," he said tersely, and she couldn't help it, she flinched. He responded with a wince, and a curse growled under his breath. "I want _you_ ," Kylo added, "I just don't want to have sex with you."

"Oh," she said quietly, and looked down at her hands. She had folded them in her lap.

He rubbed a hand over his face and growled again, she could pick up a mutter of, "Force, am I bad at this," and fretted for a moment that his temper would fly. But he calmed himself down, though it took visible effort. His touch was gentle when he cupped Rey's chin. "It's not you. You're beautiful to me. I don't want to have sex with anyone."

It was his turn to frown and think, but Rey didn't let the silence stretch. She cradled his hands in hers, and curled up against his chest again. "Okay."

"Just like that?" he asked incredulously. He sounded tense, braced to take offense.

Rey raised her head from where she had tucked it under his chin, and blinked at him. "Yes?" It was a surprise, but this was way better than what she'd braced herself for. She fiddled with his fingers, marveling like so often how much larger his hands were. She'd never lost that wonder at the smallest of things in the world, and was proud of having preserved it throughout all the harshness of her life on Jakku. "If you don't want to, we won't," Rey said simply. "What else is there to it?"

"Your needs." He sounded tense now, on the verge of being angry. "That you might change your mind. That you're going to…"

Rey placed a finger against Kylo's lips, and like every time she watched him blush for her, she couldn't stifle her smile. She was so glad there was no longer any need to hide it these days. "I don't know what I'm going to want, at some point in the future. But I can take care of it like I always did before, or we can think of something. I don't know. But if you don't want to you don't."

"It's not going to change, you know," he said, still so clipped and borderline angry, but something told Rey he was more frustrated than angry, and it wasn't aimed at her at all. Kylo was always most upset with what he considered to be his own shortcomings. "It's not a matter of waiting, or of being seductive or in love enough. Maybe I could do it, if it's important to you. I'm not sure how I would feel about that, and I haven't ever had reason to try. But I'm never going to _want_ sex like most people do."

She crinkled her nose. "You've been on the Dark Side. You had a table of ashes and wore that ugly duck beak helmet. The first time we met, you chased me through a forest like some murderer from a horror story and then you kidnapped and tortured me! You think not having sex is going to be the one thing that is unforgivable to me?"

For once, Kylo was rendered speechless. Rey relished in her little triumph.

She brushed a kiss to his jawline. "So… now that we've had that talk, does that mean I can finally stay the night?" Kylo tensed up again, like he thought she would already be pushing for seduction five minutes in, and she had to squash her irritation. While learning about the galaxy at large, she'd also learned about the many ways in which people would want sex, or wouldn't want it. She wasn't as uneducated as he thought, nor was she naïve. "I want to cuddle!" she snapped.

And then Rey just took his hand and tugged him towards the bed.

They ended up getting undressed first, and much to her amusement Kylo negotiated getting to brush his teeth first, but soon enough they were sharing his narrow bed for the first time. Kylo laid behind her, spooning her, and his fingers were once again drawing circles on her belly.

"Better?" he murmured teasingly, nuzzling her hair.

She closed her eyes, and wriggled back into him in gleeful contentment, then thought better of it for she didn't want there to be more misunderstandings. "Mhm," she murmured happily. "But when we share quarters we're getting a bigger bed."

 _The End_


End file.
